The FSF Europe recommends: avoid SourceForge

phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk
Wed Nov 14 15:14:14 UTC 2001


On Wednesday 14 November 2001  3:29 am, MJ Ray wrote:
> Phil:
> > Open source and free software are the same thing (essentially)
> > with a different name.
> > Would a rose by another name smell as sweet?
>
> Yes, but one man says it is pink, while another says it is red, so
> there is disagreement.

About the name, not the fact.

I know what sort of software I like to use. I'm not bothered what
people call it, they can name it "wuggywugwug software" for all
I care.

> > I think it would be more effective if you didn't come across so
> > extreme.
>
> Sorry, I meant death on a corporate level, not a personal one.

Sure, but even that's too harsh, IMO.

(Now if you'd said you wanted to see Microsoft bankrupt... :-))

> > > Harsh, I know, but a community can't go two ways at once and
> > > still be one community.
> >
> > Sure it can. And in fact the free software community often moves
> > in several directions at the same time. So we have Linux and BSD
> > and Hurd. We have Gtk+ and Qt and Tk. We have GNOME and KDE. We
> > have INN and leafnode and sn. We have no end of news readers and
> > mail clients.
>
> None of the others are incompatible directions with the others,

Sure they are, you can't run Linux and BSD on the same box at the 
same time (unless you're using something like VMware).

> merely different paths to roughly the same objectives.  That's why
> they can co-exist happily, if not always totally peacefully.
>
> Is there place for non-free software in the free software
> community?

The cxommunity is made up of people not programs. Is there a place
for people who use non-free software in the free software community?

Yes, IMO.

> Clearly not, by definition.  They cannot co-exist.

In point of fact there are many examples of free and non-free software
both existing at the same time to do the same job.

> > >  They've already had one failed fork attempt with
> > > "open source"
> >
> > That's a rebranding program not a fork attempt. A rose would
> > still be a rose if I decided to call it a "wug" as well.
>
> OSI include licences as meeting their definition that FSF doesn't. 
> The generic term "Open Source" includes things (eg from Sun, MS et
> al) that neither would endorse.  (This last is why I believe that
> OSI's rebranding has failed and made our task harder, not easier.)
>
> Oh, and if you call it a wug, I shall insist the plural is wugfskz.

Splitter. :-)

-- 
*** Philip Hunt *** philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk ***




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